UCLA hasn't been the same since beating Oregon

The playing court at Oregon's new Matthew Knight Arena is designed to give the impression the game is being played in deep in the wilderness.

It was a fitting setting for a young and inexperienced UCLA team that took the court on a cold, wet Saturday afternoon last month in search of not only a path back to the NCAA Tournament but to itself as well.

The Bruins would emerge from the wilderness a different team, steeled by a bond forged in the most hostile of environments, a group convinced it was headed in the right direction.

UCLA (18-7, 9-3 Pac-10) travels to the Bay Area for games against Stanford tonight and Cal on Saturday, having won its past five games and nine of its past 10. An NCAA Tournament berth that was an uncertainty when the Bruins took the court in Eugene on Jan. 15 now a given.

The tentativeness that preceded the Oregon trip has been replaced by a clear swagger.

"I can tell you once you get on the court with them they have the look and feel of a group that's very confident, very confident," Oregon State coach Craig Robinson said. "They're smiling and having fun and playing hard and getting things done. Once you get on the court with them you can tell they think they have a lot of up side."

It is a belief that is only starting to gain traction nationally. Despite winning 15 of their past 18 games, UCLA has failed to crack either the Associated Press or USA Today/ESPN Top 25 polls. They are tied for No. 28 in the former this week and are No. 29 in the latter. UCLA's absence in the polls has fed another key part of the Bruins' game developed that week in the Willamette Valley — the chip on their shoulder.

"We really don't care about rankings we just try to go out there and see what happens," guard Malcolm Lee said. "If we end up being a Top 25 team so be it."

UCLA was not even in the Top 25 conversation when it traveled to the Pacific Northwest for games at Oregon State Jan. 13 and Oregon two days later. The Bruins were coming off resounding losses to Washington and USC, and a midcourt celebration by the Trojans prompted a postgame meltdown by the Bruins in which freshman center Joshua Smith ripped the officiating.

Smith received a public reprimand from the Pac-10 for his comments adding a subplot to UCLA's tenuous victory against Oregon State. The Bruins blew a 17-point lead before escaping with a 62-57 victory that highlighted UCLA's lack of focus.

Two days later, UCLA found itself down 12 points at Matt Court with 5:54 remaining in the first half, seemingly on its way to a 2-3 start in the Pac-10.

But in one of the most hostile environments in college basketball, the Bruins rebounded in the second half for a 67-59 victory. It wasn't completely apparent that day but UCLA was headed out of the wilderness.

"It definitely started there," Honeycutt said. "That whole mindset."

A belief the Bruins could only count on each other.

"It gives us chip on your shoulder when you approach the game with that us against the world' mentality," Lee said. "When you approach the game that way you really don't have anything to lose."

That mentality was further solidified when the Bruins spent the next day fogged in at San Francisco International Airport on the way home.

"Our chemistry built a lot," Lee said.

"That really brought us together," point guard Lazeric Jones said. "We don't really have anybody that's for us but each other. It really helped bring us together and make us want to go out there and fight for each other."

The recent win streak has done nothing to shake the chip on the Bruins' shoulder.

"I still feel like we're the underdogs," Honeycutt said. "We're still not where UCLA has been the past few years. You come to UCLA, you know, people have high expectations and slowly but surely we're starting to fill them out probably even more than what people expected for this team, especially early in the season."